An Overview of Setting Up Your Real Estate Investing Business. This is Part 1 of 4.

When you are starting a new real estate investing business, there are 4 main steps you must take to create your business’s foundation. If you are already an established investor, you may also need to complete one or more of these tasks if you are expanding your business or re-branding or just want to tighten up some of your operations like email for example.

The 4 Main Steps You Need To Take To Create Your Business Include:

1) Picking a Company Name

2) Getting a Domain & Setting Up Professional Company Email (Hooray! You can stop using your personal yahoo account!)

3) Getting a Company Phone Number & Address

4) Getting a Logo – fun part!

STEP 1: Picking A Name For Your Real Estate Investing Business:

When you get set up in this business, you need to feel very good about the company you have created – you need to feel that essential ownership. Creating a business can start with naming it as it builds excitement and you can have some fun with this. You’re going to need to do some brainstorming, so if you don’t consider yourself to be creative, then ask someone for help that is. Start with 5 ideas and you can further refine them...

Now, Take The 5 Ideas And Ask Yourself The Following About Each:

What does the name make you think of? Commercial or residential? Does the name suggest that you are a hobby investor or emerging real estate investing business? Maybe you like dogs, but if you named your business “Black Dog Properties” for example, it has a much less professional tone and it could backfire and make people think you sell dog houses or are a dog sitter for example, not that you buy/sell residential homes.

Are you stating the nature of your business in the company name? Does it contain the word “homes,” “properties,” or “investors” in it? An example of a business name that does not state the nature of your business would be “Lakeside Investments” or “Smith Holdings”. Neither one gives a seller or buyer a clear idea that real estate is your core business. I personally had a hard time with this because I wanted to get really creative but realized that the further I went, I was no longer explaining what the company did in the title. You want to be easily remembered and a good way to do that is name your company something people think of and relate to without any doubts on what your core business is.

Is the name specific enough? Add descriptive words so you get, “Wholesale Property Store” or “Best Deal Homes in MI”…those words can work well in a business name.

Is it too broad or generic? A name that is too generic may be “Texas Properties”…this will lead you to have all kinds of Google results that won’t take people right to your business “Texas Properties” is a generic search term like “Italian food”.

**Another problem with names that are too general is that the domains are usually not available any longer or you have to buy them from the domain owner for sometimes thousands of dollars (if it’s really popular).**

Is your own name included? Some people jump to include their personal name –first, last, or both – in their real estate investing business name. It makes logical sense, doesn’t it – your company, your time and energy behind it, your future real estate investing empire…right? No…not necessarily…I received some great advice that you actually do not want to include your personal name in your business for a few reasons. You don’t necessarily want to be that visible. Having your personal name in your business name could potentially make you more vulnerable to liabilities, (tax, insurance, lawsuits). Also, in some cases you can risk seeming like you have an inflated sense of “self-importance” even when that is certainly unfounded.

Other helpful considerations: Something to keep in mind that helped me through this process of naming my business was planning for consistency through my domains. I wanted my main website and my squeeze page domains to be uniform to again make it easy for people to know what I do. (Just a reminder, “squeeze pages” are the sites that are designed to build your buyers and sellers list by offering visitors a free download – usually a report or eBook – in exchange for the visitor’s name and email address.)

An example of consistency through your main site domain and your squeeze pages would be “Wholesale Property Shop” as your business name, then getting the domain “wholesalepropertyshop.com” for your main site well as “sellatwholesaleshop.com” and “buyatwholesaleshop.com” for squeeze pages.

Now That You’ve Brainstormed And Have Some Solid Candidates, You Should Do The Following:

Visit your State’s Secretary of State website – This will give you a way to check whether or not someone in your state has already filed a business under that name...essentially whether or not the name is taken. Some states Secretary of State websites are not the exact place to check this – so I suggest you Google “business entity search, MI” or the state that you live in. I tried it for a few states and each time I did, it showed me the right link to enter the business name someone is considering.

Visit the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office website – this link will be sure you are not infringing on any other business’s federally trademarked rights to a specific name.

d. You will see the box to enter your desired business name and then hit “submit query”

Search Google & Other Search Engines – Google your proposed business name – see what comes up. Sometimes people don’t register their business before starting a website, so it’s a good way to check and get an idea of what is already out there around the names you’ve brainstormed about.

**There are tools to search for available domains like “domainsearch.com” and “bustaname.com” but I recommend going right to "GoDaddy" where you can see what’s available and then be able to purchase the domain all in one place.**

At this point, you should have narrowed down your options and be all set with a winning choice!

Here’s to the limitless success of your new real estate investing company!

Part 2 of this article will cover getting your domain name and setting up professional company email.

Emily Hay is a person with a passion for real estate investing. She firmly believes that long-term real estate investing success requires developed skill and defined action plans, rather than a haphazard approach that results in quick profits. Being on the newer end of the real estate investing spectrum, she is diligently working to build her real estate investing business the right way from the start.

Emily is also a strong proponent of social media for real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. She believes that a social media presence backed by a clear strategy can be an effective means to market, network and to build a brand.

Emily A. Hay is 27 years old, was raised near Cleveland, Ohio and graduated from The Ohio State University with a marketing degree. She has held several sales positions including Account Executive, selling office equipment at IKON Office Solutions. The B2B sales environment gave her what she considers to be the greatest sales boot camp training one could have.

Extensive reading and research, coupled with working in a small business environment, cemented her belief that real estate investing would give her the opportunity to create the business and life she wants.

Emily Hay currently resides near Detroit, Michigan and focuses her investing in the southeast Michigan area.

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